A weekly check-up of gender, medicine, and history in the news.

• The computer your viewing this on was brought to you by a gay man.
• Want to date like it’s 1938? Here’s a handy guide!
• The long (and quite technical) history of the espresso machine.
• The very first drinking song discovered?
• The mystery of Dolly Madison’s red dress.
• Were nuns too sexy in the Middle Ages?
• For your own safety, stay out of the kitchen!
• Giggle water and petting parties: Slang of the 1920s.
• A great new exhibit in NYC features the complicated history of activism.
• Thoughts on Badu, Simone, and the black female body.
• Thanks to The Pill, women are having fewer abortions.
• The women of Watergate.
• David Halperin reports on the straight media’s  annual state-of-the-gay report.
• Just in time for summer – The history of the swimsuit.
• New study sheds light on women and masterbation.